This story sounds a bit like a media beat-up, a reporter trying to extract every last ounce of political and social mileage from a dying news story. Is there any connection between young Master Gross and the school where the stabbing occurred? It annoys me when reporters do this, because in supposedly trying to present "concerned parents" and by sympathetic to Aspie kids, they're doing even more to stigmatise them in the name of newspaper sales.

We had similar problems when the Port Arthur massacre occurred (10 years ago now, in Tasmania) and there were claims that the killer has Asperger's Syndrome. It was a sensational news story and this particular angle was used to extract a few more drops of community outrage. Our boys had just been diagnosed and we were in shock also; then we had to deal with idiots in the community who claimed our boys were likely to be dangerous as well.

It all blew over. The Port Arthur killer, only about 20 at the time, probably has a lot more wrong with him than just Asperger's (assuming the Aspie label is correct). He will never be released. He hunted down 35 people, including a number of children. One man lost his entire family - wife and two little girls. The killer stalked them quite deliberately. That is not the typical act of someone with Asperger's. In Port Arthur and many other parts of Australia his name is never mentioned.

An impulsive act such as a stabbing - it can be analysed afterwards and some sort of trigger found. Sometimes other factors can also be recognised and if people learn from this then future problems can be alleviated or prevented. But sometimes bad things just happen, and the diagnosis of the perpetrator is often irrelevant.